April 20, 2026
The Kansas City, Kansas Public Library is committed to ensuring the Freedom To Read in our community. Both our Freedom to Read and Freedom to View Statements are always available on our Policies and Procedures page. As we begin National Library Week with Right to Read Day, we want to share with you the latest information regarding challenged and banned books in 2025.
Every year, American Library Association (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The lists are based on information from confidential reports filed by library professionals and community members, as well as news stories published throughout the United States.
Since 2021, ALA has tracked a sharp spike in censorship attempts in libraries. OIF tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, the second highest ever documented by ALA. Of the unique titles challenged in 2025, 1,671 (40%) represent the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color.
OIF documented 5,668 books banned from libraries (66% of the total challenged) in 2025. An additional 920 books were censored through access restrictions such as relocation or requiring parental permission. This is both the highest number of titles censored in one year and the highest rate of challenges resulting in censorship from 1990–2025.
For more information about the most challenged books and the work of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom, please visit their website at ala.org.
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Number of challenges in 2025: 36
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Number of challenges: 25
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
Number of challenges: 24
The long path to the throne has only just begun for Aelin Galathynius. Loyalties have been broken and bought, friends have been lost and gained, and those who possess magic find themselves at odds with those who don't. As the kingdoms of Erilea fracture around her, enemies must become allies if Aelin is to keep those she loves from falling to the dark forces poised to claim her world. With war looming on all horizons, the only chance for salvation lies in a desperate quest that may mark the end of everything Aelin holds dear. Aelin's journey from assassin to queen has entranced millions across the globe, and this fifth installment will leave fans breathless. Will Aelin succeed in keeping her world from splintering, or will it all come crashing down?
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
Number of challenges: 23
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father--despite his hard-won citizenship--Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Number of challenges: 23
Five troubled teenagers fall into prostitution as they search for freedom, safety, community, family, and love.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Number of challenges: 22
Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from stories, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin, a High Lord of the faeries. As her feelings toward him transform from hostility to a firey passion, the threats against the faerie lands grow. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose Tamlin forever.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Number of challenges: 21
A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked.
Identical by Ellen Hopkins
Number of challenges: 21
Sixteen-year-old identical twin daughters of a district court judge and a candidate for the United States House of Representatives, Kaeleigh and Raeanne Gardella desperately struggle with secrets that have already torn them and their family apart.
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Number of challenges: 21
Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.
Storm and Fury by Jennifer Armentrout
Number of challenges: 21
Eighteen-year-old Trinity Marrow, who is losing her sight, has a well-kept secret. She can see and talk to the dead and must remain in a compound that is guarded by Wardens who are shape-shifting gargoyles. They must protect her from demons who want to capture her to take on her special powers. However, a new threat arrives, and Trinity joins forces with Zayne, a Warden from another clan, in order to save her family.